Spoilers for all previous Gundam entries in the Cosmic Era continuity, including Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, will be left unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

Taking place two years after SEED, Destiny follows the story of Shinn Asuka, a young Coordinator and ZAFT pilot. A surprise attack on a ZAFT military base and the subsequent Gundamjacking of three of ZAFT's new Super Prototype Gundams kicks off a sequence of events that results in a second full-scale war between ZAFT and the Earth Alliance. However, things are not as clear-cut as they seem at first, and questions arise over which side of the conflict is really in the right. About halfway through the series, much of the cast from Gundam SEED returns to the spotlight, and the series gradually shifts to their POV, considerably changing the tone of the series. It has its own sidestory in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED CE.73: Stargazer. A manga series Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny: The Edge is focused on Athrun's POV and adds some extended scenes not present in the anime. There is a spinoff called The Edge Desire which adds original backstories to some of the characters that were not covered in the anime, most notably Shinn, Lunamaria and Rey's time in the ZAFT military academy.

Destiny makes numerous appearances in various Video Games, such as the Massively Multiplayer Crossover franchises Super Robot Wars and Another Century's Episode, in addition to the Gundam Vs Series. Destiny characters and mecha also appear in Gundam Fighter, a Flash-based Web Game featuring nearly the entire Gundam franchise.

On November 16, 2012, Gundam Seed Destiny: HD Remaster was announced after Gundam Seed: HD Remaster's run was completed. It aired on March 29, 2013, and finished its run on March 7, 2014. In 2017, it was announced that the HD Remaster of both SEED Destiny and its predecessor, SEED, would be receiving English dubs from NYAV Post. The Remaster of SEED Destiny was released in November 2021.

On May 31, 2021, Fukuda stated that the sequel movie first announced in 2006 was out of Development Hell and is part of an ongoing CE "Ignited" project. On July 2, 2023, the aforementioned movie, now titled Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom was announced, and it premiered on January 26, 2024.

Gundam SEED Destiny provides examples of:

• The Ace: Many, but Athrun in particular gets this treatment by Minerva's crew early on, as does Shinn later on.
• Ace Custom:
  • Ace pilots or Red Coats tend to have their machines painted in their custom colors. The ZAKU Phantom can be considered this as only ace pilots or commanders such as Rey, Yzak and later Dearka are known to pilot them while the ordinary soldier gets the ZAKU Warrior. The Joule Team's ZAKUs have special orange shoulder armor to differentiate themselves from other teams.
  • Neo Roanoke's Windam is colored purple compared to the default blue and white scheme. This is likely a reference to Neo's old identity's pilot suit, Mu, having a custom purple color which is not used by other Earth Alliance pilots. Its Jet Striker pack has its limiters removed to offer increased speed and performance.
• Adaptation Distillation:
  • The Special Editions manage to be surprisingly improved thanks to editing out some of the more hated elements.
  • The Edge distillates events in the main series from Athrun's POV.
• Affably Evil: Gilbert Durandal is surprisingly polite to his troops for a Big Bad... until he is revealed to be a Control Freak and a Well-Intentioned Extremist who is willing to take extremely drastic, bloodthirsty methods to achieve his goals.
• Airstrike Impossible: The episode “Attack the Lohergin!”, where Shinn has to pilot the Core Splendor through a dark tunnel to destroy the Earth Alliance’s titular weapon.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Stella and Durandal get sad exits. Durandal even goes out surrounded by his family.
• All There in the Manual: Want to know how Athrun feels about Meyrin? Want to know how Shinn was during his school days? Well, you'll just have to buy the drama CD.
• All Your Powers Combined:
  • In a rare mecha example, the Destiny's design is an All Your Powers Combined version of the Impulse's (and Strike's) various Mecha Expansion Packs — agility, massive firepower, and a really big sword all at once instead of one at a time! As it turns out, the Destiny's design was recycled from the original design for the Freedom, which was meant to have the same concept but proved too difficult to animate at the time. This explains why it looks like it combines all of the Strike's Striker Packs instead of the Impulse's Silhouette Packs.
  • The Strike Freedom can be considered this with the original G-Project Gundams from SEED. It inherits the Strike's performance multiplied as the original Freedom was mentioned to have four times the power of the Strike. The railguns are an upgraded version of the original Freedom's which are developed from the Duel Gundam Assault Shroud's "Shiva" railgun. The combining beam rifles are similar to the Buster Gundam's own rifles. The Calidus beam cannon is reminiscent of the Aegis Gundam's own "Scylla" cannon. Not quite similar to the Blitz but the Wings of the Skies can be seen as a unique ability rarely seen on another Mobile Suits like the Blitz's Mirage Colloid. Interestingly, the Destiny's equivalent Wings of Light does use Mirage Colloid.
  • Zigzagged with the Akatsuki as it can only use the packs one at at time. Its space-based Shiranui pack gives it Attack Drones like the Strike Freedom's while its Oowashi sky-pack gives it a flight pack similar to the Justice's Fatum-00.
• Animation Bump: Notable because it happens frequently in several episodes where the animation is not at its best, they'll just always manage to save the best for certain scenes. Episode 32 is a good example, as the episode itself contains pretty good animation that suddenly goes up to excellent quality during the Hope Spot and the scene where Stella dies.
• Antagonist Title: Gundam series are usually named after the machine piloted by the main character. In this one however, the Destiny Gundam is given to Shinn around the time the show confirms Durandal is the Big Bad and Shinn is a Decoy Protagonist, meaning the titular Gundam is actually fielded by the antagonist faction. It's interesting to note this is also a rare Gundam series where the title can be referring to more than just a mecha, the other option being the masterplan of the Big Bad, which is called "Destiny Plan".
• Armor Is Useless: Played with. Phase Shift Armor being better known means that there are more beam weapons used by all factions to counter it, rendering it less effective compared to SEED. The Freedom's railguns could hit through the Abyss Gundam's Phase Shift Armor, despite the immunity to such weapons Phase Shift is meant to provide. The Akatsuki's Yata-no-Kagami reflects ranged beam attacks but is susceptible to all other types of weaponry, making its capabilities more dependent on the pilot as any kinetic weaponry or melee weapon (including beam blades and sabers) can damage through it as Cagalli found out the hard way against Shinn.
• Arranged Marriage: Yuna and Cagalli were meant to be wedded for political purposes and help ORB to progress politically. Kira barging into the ceremony in the Freedom derails the whole thing.
• Artistic License – Biology: The Destiny Plan's true nature and logic sound reasonable: to have people's place in society determined by extensive genetic analysis. The problem is that this completely ignores the "nurture" half of the Nature vs. Nurture equation, which is why the protagonists opposed it. The ultimate expression of this within the series itself is Rey. Given that he's an exact genetic clone of Rau le Creuset, if the Destiny Plan's logic was sound, then Rey would be exactly like Rau, which he is very much not. The realization that he doesn't have to be like Rau, despite their identical genes, is ultimately what prompts his Villainous Breakdown.
• Ascended Fanboy: Lunamaria Hawke, when she finally gets the chance to pilot Mobile Suits alongside her idol Athrun.
• Ascended Fridge Horror: In SEED, Uzumi blows up Orb's military facilities along with his entire cabinet of ministers, effectively leaving his daughter with no confirmed supporters on the political field. Sure enough in here, the Seirans take control of Orb thanks to the vacuum generated while reducing Cagalli to a figurehead with an Arranged Marriage, forcing Orb to join the Earth Alliance which causes much of the conflict between the Archangel and the Minerva.
• Attack Drone: The Chaos, and later, the Strike Freedom and Legend, are equipped with second generation attack drones that allow pilots with little or no "spatial awareness" (i.e., normal pilots) to use them effectively. The Shiranui Space Pack for the Akatsuki is similar to the first generation DRAGOON System, meaning only pilots with high "spatial awareness" can use them.
• Award-Bait Song: "Fields of Hope", the song that plays with the destruction of the Messiah and the subsequent calls for a ceasefire by both sides that illuminates the battlefield with lights from their signal flares, putting an end to the Second Alliance-PLANT War.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Some Mobile Suits have very impressive performances but are also very expensive to produce according to supplementary material.
  • The Akatsuki's Yata-no-Kagami armor to be given to one mobile suit costs the same amount as producing 20 M1 Astrays. An interview with Fukuda reveals that the Akatsuki was funded by the Atha family rather than the Orb military due to its exorbitant costs.
  • The GOUF Ignited is one of the few flight capable Mobile Suits that does not sacrifice durability or weapons for the ability to fly and has impressive performance. However, it is expensive to produce which is one of the reasons why it lost to the more versatile ZAKU as ZAFT's next-generation mass production Mobile Suit. These costs are what made the GOUF Ignited exclusive to commanders or Red Coats only. This is a retrospective example as this economic issue is mentioned in the HG GYAN Strom manual.
• Badass Normal: Neo Roanoke, who is a natural that can hold his own against Coordinators and Gundams using a mook suit. He even destroyed the Freedom's shield, with a rocket powered exploding kunai.
• Badass Longcoat: Gilbert Durrandal's Supreme Councilman uniform has one.
• Bait-and-Switch Credits: A very minor example. The ending credits where tears plays in Phase-28 of the HD Remaster features a still-shot of the final battle with the Strike Freedom, Infinite Justice, Destiny, Legend and..... Lunamaria's ZAKU Warrior with the Impulse nowhere to be found. This might have been to hide Lumamaria becoming the next pilot of the Impulse but there are much bigger spoilers in the ending for first-time viewers such as the existence of the aforementioned four Gundams.
• Beam Spam: If you thought Freedom was the master of this, just wait until you see Strike Freedom. Also, in order: Destroy, Legend, Infinite Justice (with or without the METEOR), Abyss, Blast Impulse, Chaos, Savior and Yzak's Slash ZAKU Phantom.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Heine Westenfluss. Off the battlefield, he is the nicest, coolest, most chilled guy in the you will ever meet. On the battlefield, he proves why he is a member of FAITH.
• BFG: The Gunner ZAKU's Orthos beam cannon, Blast Impulse's Kerberos cannons, Destiny's long-range beam cannon, and Strike Freedom's chest cannon.
• BFS: Sword Impulse's Excalibur and Destiny's Arondight anti-ship swords.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Djibril and Durandal are on opposite sides of the war, utterly loathe one another, and both need to go in order for the story to end well. Which of them is the more dangerous (and whether Durandal is using Djibril or not) is a matter that's open for debate.
• Big Damn Heroes: Kira's specialty. Especially after he gets the Strike Freedom and rescues his sister Cagalli.
• Bittersweet Ending: LOGOS/Blue Cosmos has been destroyed for good and Durandal's Destiny Plan was stopped. In addition, Lacus became the chairman of PLANT and Cagalli the leader of Orb. However, the war still claimed untold number of lives, and animosity between Naturals and Coordinators still linger.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: Unlike in the first series, ZAFT is portrayed as more moral and heroic in contrast to the OMNI Earth Alliance forces which have taken a turn for the worse. This is to such an extent that the neutral captain Murrue Ramius says in Episode 17 that she "can't help wanting to take ZAFT's side and teach the Earth Forces a lesson." Furthermore, the extremist elements of ZAFT such as the Coordinators who tried to drop Junius 7 on Earth faced opposition from the main ZAFT forces. Meanwhile, the Earth Alliance uses slave labor to build a base under construction uses orphan children and forces them to fight and kill each other as training to be Tyke Bomb child soldiers, attacks civilian cities in Europe to teach the Eurasian Federation who are their rivals a lesson, and happily tries to commit genocide against the Coordinators twice. The racist anti-Coordinator extremists are the norm in the Earth Alliance. ZAFT soldiers do engage in unscrupulous actions such as trying to assassinate Lacus Clyne and then later trying to destroy Orb, under the orders of Chairman Gilbert Durandal.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation:
  • Del Rey's treatment of the SEED Destiny manga. Meaningful Names are butchered to the point of losing their meaning, and basic punctuation and grammar are ignored.
  • This was inherited from Del Rey's translation of the SEED manga, where the same happened to an incredible degree. The second volume of the SEED Destiny manga finally used the official spellings of characters and mecha, but contained a letter at the start of the book essentially complaining about how they had to follow someone else's translations rather than their own. The grammar problems remained, however.
• Body Double: Meer Campbell for Lacus Clyne, though not one done with Lacus' consent - the impersonation was done so that Meer's backers could cash in Lacus' reputation for political capital without needing to actually get her on board with their plans.
• Body Guard Crush: Athrun and Cagalli in the first eight episodes.
• Book Ends: In Episode 8, while at the Orb War Memorial, Shinn said the following in front of Kira, who is also paying his respects:
  Shinn: Perhaps it means that I can't be fooled. No matter how beautiful the flowers are, people will just wipe them out.
  • At the end of Final Plus, while visiting the now-destroyed Memorial, Kira provided the response to Shinn's earlier question, before offering him a chance to work with him:
  Kira: No matter how many times people try to blow away the flowers, we'll always replant them back. I'm sure of it.
• Bridge Bunnies: Meyrin, most prominently.
• Broken Bird: Stella Louissier, due to being a Tyke Bomb. Talia Gladys also counts.
• Central Theme:
  • Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither. One of the main reasons the Three Ships Alliance oppose Durandal's Destiny Plan, if Durandal wishes to usher forth a world without conflict through genetic determinism, this also means robbing people of free will, and part of it is humanity's capacity for evil. Also, the idea of a world without conflict would mean the world might become a boring place to live and mankind is at the threat of stagnancy because of the absence of something to struggle against.
  • Wars and conflicts exist in the world so long as evil lurks in the hearts of men, but in the face of it, how you treat one another is entirely up to you and resolving conflicts through de-escalation and diplomacy. Related to the above, Durandal points out that mankind has and will always have the capacity for evil, and his Destiny Plan is designed to be humanity's salvation dedicated in eternal benevolence and order, at the expense of robbing their ability to make decisions for themselves. During his standoff with Kira, if he were to be martyred the world will be once again condemned to darkness and chaos. Kira refutes that humans can change and understand each other, and he knows that he, nor everyone else cannot eliminate evil from every heart or hatred from every mind, all he can do is pass this wisdom to the next generation so they can learn from the mistakes of the past and that they might never be repeated again.
• Character Shilling: In Destiny, Heine Westenfluss is set up as an ace pilot like Athrun as well as charming and a really nice guy. Unfortunately, he doesn't get a chance to live up to his extreme reputation since he dies too soon.
• Chekhov's Skill:
  • Athrun shows off some incredibly Improbable Aiming Skills on the Minerva's firing range by scoring headshot after headshot on a series of rapidly deploying targets in Phase 07. Much later, in Phase 46, we see those skills in action for real when he takes out an entire team of hitmen with submachine guns & grenades, using only a handgun.
  • Rey also practices at that firing range frequently. Lampshaded by Shinn and Luna later in the show. Then we get the last episode.
• Chess Motifs: Durandal is a fan of these.
• Chest Blaster:
  • Notably, the BABI, Abyss, and Strike Freedom all have chest-mounted beam cannons.
  • The Destroy Gundam has three, each cannon being bigger and wider than a normal mobile suit. Nearly destroys entire cities in a single shot.
• Chickification: Cagalli suffers from this due being unprepared for the political side of a leader, allowing the Seirans to wrench the country from her while reducing her to a figurehead. She ultimately gains her Action Girl and leader status back later in the series.
• Clip Show: Gundam SEED fans thought the first series had more recap episodes than it really needed - the problem is worse here. Special notice should go to episode 29 which used almost all footage from the first show! The last of the clip shows got surprisingly good ratings, apparently because it was narrated by Chairman Durandal.
• Colony Drop: The Remnant of Patrick Zala's genocidal anti-Natural faction drop the wreckage of Junius 7 onto the Earth, resparking in full the war between the Alliance and ZAFT.
• Combining Mecha: Impulse follows the basic Gundam mold by being made up of a top, bottom, and fighter plane acting as the cockpit. It can also combine mid-battle with its Silhouette Packs by way of having them brought out by a remote unit and then docking. Rey uses the concept to great effect in developing Shinn's strategy to defeat Kira.
• Combo Rifle: The Strike Freedom is equipped with a pair of beam rifles which can combine into a longer rifle.
• Compilation Movie: Unlike other Gundam series, this series got four instead of the usual three: The Shattered World, Their Respective Swords, Flames of Destiny, and The Cost of Freedom (the last one being ironic given how many Curb-Stomp Battles Strike Freedom delivered during the final stretch). There was also a "movie" released on the GundamInfo YouTube channel that was simply the first 5 episodes pasted together.
• Composite Character:
  • Shinn is pretty much one to both Amuro and Kamille. His Impulse is similar to The RX-78 Gundam - a Combining Mecha consisting of legs as one section, upper body as another, and Space Fighter/Meta Mecha cockpit as the torso, with a very similar red-with-gold-cross design for its shield. Shinns' dub voice is Amuro's Zeta dub voice. Shin also has Unstoppable Rage due to suffering through a Trauma Conga Line, and romantic troubles with his enemy-cum-love interest just like Kamille.
  • Stella is Rosamia Badam living Four Murasame's life.
  • The stolen Second Stage machines are almost a Suspiciously Similar Substitute to the three Gundams used by the Biological CPUs while taking inspiration from other Earth Alliance suits. The Abyss is a combination of the Forbidden's melee weapon and aquatic capabilities with the Calamity's firepower. The Chaos is similar to the Raider's transforming capabilities and claws, the Aegis's foot beam sabers and the Moebius Zero's Attack Drones. The Gaia takes inspirations from both the Biological CPUs' Gundams and the G-Project units. Its color and thrusters in Mobile Suit form is reminiscent of the Blitz and Raider Gundam's, its beam blades are similar in concept to the Sword Strike's Schwert Gewehr and its placement of weapons in its Mobile Armor mode is similar to how the Aegis does so. Its overall function is similar to the Raider Gundam's being the Fragile Speedster, given that the Raider and Gaia are very fast but have low firepower.
  • The Savior Gundam has weapons derived from the Freedom and Justice Gundam's beam cannons and is ZAFT's equivalent of the Aegis Gundam: a red transforming Gundam with a tall sensor spine on its head for commanders to collect information and better communication.
  • The Blast Impulse feels like a combination of the Strike's Mecha Expansion Pack ability, the Calamity's purpose of an artillery unit and its hovering ability with the Freedom Gundam's firepower minus the flight capabilities and the beam saber replaced with a beam javelin. Similarly, the Sword Impulse is a combination of the Strike with the Sword Calamity's weapons minus the grappling claw and Chest Blaster which are replaced with a beam rifle, being closer to the Sword Calamity rather than the Sword Strike.
  • The atmospheric Oowashi Pack Akatsuki is similar to being a Hyaku Shiki with the Justice Gundam's flight pack while the space-use Shiranui Pack Akatsuki is like the Hyaku Shiki with the Strike Freedom or Providence Gundam's DRAGOONs.
• Compressed Adaptation:
  • The manga. The 50-episode series gets condensed into 4 volumes (19 chapters), and becomes incomprehensible at times due to the heavily rushed pacing.
  • Zigzagged with Gundam SEED Destiny the Edge. The manga focuses on the story from Athrun's point of view with some changes and additions similar to the movies while some scenes from the anime are shortened or omitted.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: Most cases of this trope depend on the skills of the pilot rather than the inherent specifications of the machines used.
  • The original Destroy Gundam took the combined efforts of the mobile suit detachments of the Archangel and the Minerva to take down. A few episodes later, Shinn and Rey blast through five of them in a matter of minutes using their newly issued Destiny and Legend Gundams.
  • Kira effortlessly defeats 12 GOUFs in 2 minutes in the Strike Freedom Gundam where one in the right hands can put up a decent fight against the Legend and Destiny Gundam at the same time.
  • Played with. The Aile Strike Rouge (Ootori in the HD Remaster) puts up an amazing fight of disabling multiple ZAKU units where one is stated to have specifications higher than the GAT-X series the Strike Rouge is from. On the other hand, the ZAKU units managed to defeat the Strike Rouge due to sheer numbers. The ZAKUs used by Rey and Lunamaria in comparison have taken down multiple Earth Alliance units.
  • The Windams are Mook units used by the Earth Alliance which are defeated en masse by the ZAFT pilots of the Minerva. Neo's performance in his Windam was able to match the Second Stage Gundams such as the Impulse and Savior and could even put up a fight against the Freedom.
• Cool Car: The sports car Athrun is seen driving when he first returns to ORB, which appears to be some kind of cross between a Lamborghini and the Starship Enterprise.
• Cool Ship: The Minerva in addition to the Archangel and Eternal making a return later on. There's also the Girty Lue, Neo's very cool assault carrier, which can turn invisible.
• Corporal Punishment: Athrun beats on Shinn for disobeying orders after he attacks an OMNI base during the Lohengrin Gate mission, and then again after Shinn brags about killing Kira.
• Crash-Into Hello: Shinn meets Stella this way. She crashes into him backwards, so Shinn ends up with two handfuls of flesh. Oops. Those Two Guys immediately ask him how it was.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Any fight involving the Strike Freedom and Infinite Justice.
• Dead Star Walking: T.M. Revolution voices Heine Westenfluss, who dies rather quickly; his Miguel Aiman character did the same in Gundam SEED. This actually becomes a running gag, since Miguel was said to have had an Orange GINN. Guess what color Heine's GOUF was?
• Decoy Protagonist: Shinn and Kira may both be this for Athrun. Made more obvious in the compilation films and the manga Gundam SEED Destiny The Edge.
• Deflector Shields: The Destroy, Destiny, Strike Freedom, Legend, and DOM Trooper are equipped with beam shield generators on both arms. The Infinite Justice has a single Beam Carry Shield. The Mobile Armors Zamza-Zah and Gells-Ghe also have them. The Akatsuki, with its Shiranui Space Pack, can form a pyramid-shaped barrier with its attack drones (in an homage to Nu Gundam's Fin Funnel Barrier).
• Demoted to Extra:
  • Yzak Joule and Dearka Elsman. Former secondary characters and Gundam pilots are reduced to piloting Elite Mook units and are only given limited roles.
  • In a similar vein, Ezalia Joule, a minor character from SEED, makes her only appearance in an audio drama.
• Disobeyed Orders, Not Punished: Shinn Asuka's repeatedly shown being insubordinate and rude to superior officers or important civilians, and his Freudian Excuse (his family was killed during the invasion of Orb). He doesn't suffer any punishment for taking enemy pilot Stella Loussier aboard their ship Minerva and directly to sickbay, nor for breaking her out (assaulting nurses and guards in the process) and returning her to her comrades in return for a promise she no longer be sent into battle. This isn't glossed over though, as it is specifically mentioned his actions with Stella warrant the death penalty. The only reason he isn't executed is because Chairman Durandal pardoned him since the chairman considered Shinn to be a useful pawn.
• Downer Beginning: We start the show off on a happy note with Shinn Asuka's family getting killed in a crossfire between the Freedom and Calamity during the Battle of Orb in what was considered one of the most brutal opening scenes of the franchise at the time of its airing.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Pretty much what happened to the Eurasian Federation. They are offhand mentioned as having been completely defeated by the Atlantic Federation within weeks.
• Easily Forgiven: The Orb/Clyne Faction seems to forgive and allow to join anyone so long as they are sorry for fighting against them. Then again with the "cycle of hatred" being a major theme, this makes a certain amount of sense. The standout example is Kira meeting Shinn in the epilogue, and rather than express any kind of anger or disappointment at Shinn's actions throughout the series, merely offers his hand and invites Shinn to join him in protecting the world. Shinn breaks down in tears at this display of kindness.
• Elite Agents Above the Law: FAITH is an elite ZAFT unit that answers itself to the head of the ZAFT Supreme Council, who serves as the head of state for the PLANTs.
• Elite Mooks: The GOUF Ignited are this In-Universe given their backstory. They were made at the same time as the ZAKU series as a candidate for the next mass-production model for ZAFT but were not chosen. Their performance was high enough to still be produced where the only named pilots it was given to were Yzak and Heine while the other known GOUF Ignited pilots are all unnamed ZAFT red coats.
• Emergency Refuelling: The Deuterion Beam Transfer System, installed on the Minerva and built in all of ZAFT's Second Stage Suits, including the Impulse and Saviour Gundams, allows for quick recharging of the Gundam's batteries during combat.
• Evil Is Bigger: The Earth Federation, and Blue Cosmos in particular, have a fixation on giant mobile armours, with the Destroy being the most obvious example of this.
• Evil Is Hammy: Djibril is without a doubt the most over-the-top character in show, followed by Dirty Coward Yuna Roma.
• Evilutionary Biologist: Durandal probably counts, as his Destiny Plan effectively consists of assigning everyone to their "proper" lot in life via genetic analysis.
• Eviler than Thou: Between Djibril and Durandal, with the cast (not to mention the planet) caught in the middle.
• Expy: Though not to the degree of the original series' similarity to Mobile Suit Gundam, quite a few characters in Destiny bear resemblance to counterparts in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam:
  • Shinn Asuka is essentially the spiritual successor to Kamille Bidan, but without the latter's self-awareness or positive role models.
  • Kira Yamato continues to carry the torch of expy to Amuro Ray from the original series, living on Earth in seclusion at the start of the series and only reluctantly entering the conflict later on.
  • While Neo Roanoke is the traditional Char archetype of the series, Athrun Zala's role more closely follows Char as he was in Zeta. Like Char he operates under an assumed (and just as unconvincing) identity early on, eventually becoming a mentor figure of sorts for a younger pilot. He also frequently questions his role in the conflict, not living up to be the leader he has the potential to be.
• Fighter-Launching Sequence: Gratuitously abused; the launch sequence combined with the combination sequence for the Impulse Gundam seemed blocked to eat the maximum possible amount of screen time.
• Forced Addiction: Similar to their Boosted Men predecessors, the Child Soldiers of the Extended Program are also given daily doses of maintenance drugs (in contrast to the Boosted Men requiring doses every few hours) and accompanying treatment in special machines, which, while also enhancing their physical capabilities (albeit to a lesser extent than the Boosted Men), also makes them entirely dependent on and addicted to said drugs being administered. Should they miss this daily maintenance, such as with the case of Stella Louissier, they will suffer from severe withdrawal pains and eventually die, thus preventing them from either defecting or being captured for long periods of time.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In Athrun's second sortie (piloting the Infinite Justice) against Shinn (piloting the Destiny), he lops off the Destiny's sword hand (and along with it, its Anti-Ship Sword). Guess how the final battle of Athrun vs Shinn plays out against the latter's luck?
  • In Episode 27, a window on Djibril's computer shows a map of the PLANT colonies, with arrows pointing at them from the moon. It's an illustration of the Requiem's range.
• From Hero to Mentor: Athrun Zala to the Minerva Crew, keeping up with the parallels with the relationship between Kamille to Quattro, it is a deconstruction. And given Athrun could barely find closure to his past wrongs, he only alienates Shinn, and is tricked into thinking Athrun once again went rogue.
• Fun with Acronyms: Many ZAFT mobile suits (though some are never explained), as well as ZAFT^note Zodiac Alliance of Freedom Treaty itself, and the numerous Backronyms for GUNDAM. Of particular note is ZAKU^note ZAFT Armed Keeper of Unity, a double acronym. Most of them indulge in Gratuitous English.
• A Glass in the Hand: Shinn, with aluminium cans, on at least three separate occasions.
• Go Out with a Smile: Stella's heartbreakingly adorable "I love you, Shinn" before she dies.
• The Good, the Bad, and the Evil: Lacus Clyne who wants to maintain the peace and stop the fighting between PLANT and the Earth Alliance vs Gilbert Durandal who wants to make the world a better place (through very controlling means) vs Lord Djibril who wants to eliminate all Coordinators and continue making profits (as Durandal claims).
• Grand Theft Prototype: The first three episodes features Sting, Auel, and Stella barging into a ZAFT hangar, killing everyone in there, taking ZAFT's brand new Chaos, Gaia, and Abyss Gundams, and escaping with their newly stolen prizes. Played with in the case of the Strike Freedom and Infinite Justice where it is mentioned that Terminal obtained their blueprints and customized what they had to Kira and Athrun's combat preferences. Athrun steals the commander/ace pilot exclusive machine the GOUF Ignited as he deserts ZAFT but at this point, the GOUF was the only machine available that could fly and has been around for a while too.
• Gray Is Useless: Mobile Suits with Phase Shift Armor depend on the color of their activated armor to determine its strength and power consumption. If the armor is deactivated from the suit being on standby in a hangar or the battery running low on power, the only color the armor will have is gray and leave the machine vulnerable. Averted with Rey's Legend Gundam which has a dark gray color scheme.
• Hand Wave: The MSV suit Forbidden Blue appeared during the Heaven's Base battle. However, the battle showed all four of them, while the side story Destiny Astray established that at least two of them were elsewhere at the time. Later sources simply retconned those four suits as "Forbidden Vortex", an improved model of the Forbidden Blue that looks identical in every way.
• Hard Truth Aesop: As stated by the director in an interview, one of the main themes of Destiny is to contrast with Seed by arguing that fighting sometimes is necessary. This heavily affects Kira, who starts the series reluctant to fight again, but by the ending is willing to take arms against Durandal (literally in the last episode) and keeps living as a soldier in the epilogue.
• Hate Sink:
  • Lord Djbrill, the successor of Muzuta Azrael, is just as hateful as his predecessor but without any of his seemingly charismatic behavior or intelligence. Leader of the hate group Blue Cosmos, Djbrill takes advantage of the worldwide tragedy of the Colony Drop of Junius 7 to plunge Earth and the PLANTs into a new war with a nuclear attack in the colonies. Continuing the Extended Program and brainwashing Mu La Flaga, he unleashes the Destroy—piloted for one of the Extended—in Eurasia, destroying many cities. Firing the Requiem and personally killing a million of Coordinators, Djbrill congratulates himself. Cowardly abandoning his allies once things get hard while entertaining plans to rule the world, Djbrill is a petty genocidal bully with the resources of a state, standing in sharp contrast to his sympathetic rival Durandal.
  • Yuna Roma Seiran is a noble of Orb who becomes Cagalli's fiancee due to an Arranged Marriage agreed to in the past. Antagonizing his fiancee and mistrusting her allies, Yuna manipulates Cagalli into accepting an alliance with the Earth Alliance despite her unwillingness until she leaves Orb to join to the Three Ship Alliance. Attempting to win a reputation within the Earth Alliance, Yuna constantly sacrifices his own forces in vain attempts while blaming his failures on others, unable to admit that Cagalli abandoned him for his cowardice and impulsivity. Giving refuge to the above-mentioned Djbrill while pathetically trying to hide it, the Seiran's family causes Orb to be invaded by ZAFT. Arrested for treason after believing that Cagalli would save him, Yuna dies trying to escape from a battle that he caused.
• Heroic BSoD: During his duel against Rey, Kira gives us the Oh, Crap! look for all of two minutes.
• He's Back!: Neo Roanoke, a.k.a. Mu la Flaga. Cagalli and Kira too.
• Holding-Back Backfire: This trope is weaponized. While preparing for "Operation Angel Down", Shinn and Rey realize the Freedom Gundam never attacks to kill, just to disarm and disable. Thus, Shinn is able to lure Kira away from the Archangel so ZAFT forces can try and sink it while Shinn battles Kira, being able to dodge and counter, ultimately wrecking it.
• Hope Spot: Right as it seems like Shinn's words to Stella have reached her and she has come to her senses, some of the damaged equipment in the Destroy Gundam explodes and snaps Stella out of her trance. She sees the Freedom Gundam hovering behind the Impulse, remembers the Freedom shooting down Neo Roanoke's Windam, and goes into a panic again while preparing to fire the Destroy Gundam's weapons to kill Shinn and everything behind him.
• Hot-Blooded: Shinn. Yzak is less so than in Seed, due to his Character Development.
• Hypocrite: Just as in the first series, Blue Cosmos and the Earth Alliance. Against the manipulation of human DNA to create Coordinators, but more than willing to using methods such as drugs to enhance the abilities of regular humans, turning them into living weapons.
• I Just Want to Be You: Meer to Lacus. To sum up, Meer was a fangirl of Lacus...and then Durandal allowed her to become her via plastic surgery. She gets to enjoy Lacus' stardom but starts going off the deep end as the war drags on. She even goes into an identity crisis when the real Lacus publicly enters the game.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Good grief, where do we even begin? The Archangel crew is really roughed up by the loss of many of their loved ones during the last one (Flay, Mu, Siegel Clyne, Representative Athha, etc.) and the Minerva crew starts falling apart as well with their own losses. Shinn, sadly, takes the worst of it, losing his family in the first episode and then Stella after Kira is forced to finish off her newly acquired Destroy when she panics again.
• Implied Love Interest: Kira and Lacus, whose official status is "more than friends, less than lovers", and are close without really having any more time spent on the development of their relationship.
• Katanas Are Just Better: Averted. The GINN High Maneuver Type IIs used by the zealots instigating the Colony Drop of Junius Seven carry katanas, but they are eventually outclassed by the beam weaponry of the ZAKUs sent to stop them.
• Karmic Death:
  • Yuna starts a pointless war and eventually has a GOUF shot down by one of his own mobile suits land on him. In the novelization, he's killed by Djibril after he outlives his usefulness.
  • Djibril is eventually killed by Rey Za Burrel, another of Al Da Flaga's clones. Both Al and Djibril are wealthy men driven by their egos and abused children for their own gain.
  • Durandal's shot by an illegal product of the lab where he used to work because he didn't bother to recognize Rey's individuality or value as a person, and Kira Yamato did. Also a Mythology Gag to anyone who has ever seen the UC series, considering how a "white kid" named Rey shoots a guy with Char Aznable's voice.
• Kill the Cutie: Kira Yamato is forced to kill Stella Louissier to prevent any more tragic death of Berliners, much to the anger of Shinn.
• Land, Sea, Sky: First half of GSD featured with Earth Alliance's (newly stolen) transformable Gundam trio : ground combat Gaia (transform into dog-like mode), aquatic combat Abyss (transform into stingray-like mode), and aerial/space combat Chaos (transform into bird-like mode) representing land, sea, and sky respectively. The first two even bearing Meaningful Name.
• Large Ham: Lord Djibril is super dramatic in his speech when he needs to, such as attempting to blow up the PLANT High Council to oblivion with his Wave-Motion Gun. Just read his page quote.
• Latex Space Suit: The pilot suits are surprisingly flexible, causing anyone wearing them to be rather comfy.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Once Shinn and Rey are promoted to FAITH, Rey uses this position to throw Lunamaria to the side and keep indoctrinating Shinn.
• Loved I Not Honor More: Athrun and Cagalli's relationship is an amicable case of this. By the end of Destiny, their duties have caused them to drift apart and their Official Couple status downgrades to a Maybe Ever After^note Athrun being shown in an Orb officer's uniform in the Special Edition epilogue has given fans some hope.
• The Main Characters Do Everything: As part of a rogue faction in yet another war between two huge powers, the Archangel has a Critical Staffing Shortage. When the Archangel relaunches in episode 14, Arnold Neumann and Dalida Lolaha Chandra are the only original bridge crew to return, Waltfeld is monitoring the ship's systems and is on stand-by as the ship's only other pilot, and Lacus is the communications officer. When the latter two leave to command the Eternal, Cagalli and Miriallia have taken up their respective positions. Thankfully after the Battle of Crete, several survivors of the Orb Union's sunken flagship follow Colonel Todaka's last words and defect to the Archangel in support of Cagalli. Still, even Athrun briefly gets put to work on the bridge of the Archangel after he escapes from ZAFT with Meyrin and he is unable to pilot due to his injuries.
• Mask Power: Neo Roanoake is seen wearing a mask, and he's the one heading the Extended's operations.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": Pretty much the whole cast's reaction when the Destroy reveals that yes, it's a mobile suit, not a mobile armor.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Freedom vs Destiny. The Destiny Plan would result in a society without freedom.
  • It can also mean that devotion to follow your own destiny results in the loss of freedom to decide for your own.
  • Lost on many Western viewers is the significance of the Akatsuki's "Yata-no-Kagami" mirror coating's name. Namely that it is a reference to one of the Three Sacred Treasures of Japan which is frequently attributed various supernatural abilities. Further the suit's name means "Dawn" and according to legend the mirror was used to lure Amaterasu (aka the Goddess of the SUN) out of a cave. Explains the appearance of the suit as well.
• Mecha Expansion Pack: Even more common compared to SEED. The Impulse uses these packs the same way the Strike does with agility, close-combat and long-range bombardment except that the Impulse's version of the Sword and Launcher Strike has more balanced equipment to fight, even in its non-specialized range of combat. There are other expansion packs present such as the Earth Alliance using Striker packs for their Windam and Dagger L units. The Wizard packs are used for the ZAKU series by ZAFT but unlike the Impulse, the Wizard packs for the ZAKU units cannot be swapped mid-fight. Similar to Kira and Mu favoring the Aile Strike's high mobility, the high mobility Blaze ZAKU packs are the most commonly used by ZAFT soldiers such as Heine, Rey and later Dearka compared to the close-range Slash pack most famously used by Yzak and the long-range Gunner pack used by Lunamaria and Dearka. The Gunner pack is the second most used machine by the ZAKU Warrior units as many appear aside from Lunamaria's while only one Gunner ZAKU Phantom appears in the entire season. The Slash pack appears to be the least used as only one episodes has a Slash ZAKU Warrior appear while Yzak is the only named user of the Slash ZAKU Phantom.
• Mid-Season Upgrade: Every named pilot that's not dead by mid-season gets a new machine.
• Modesty Towel: Invoked by Meyrin to ensure that the ZAFT soldiers looking for a runaway Athrun are Distracted by the Sexy. She wasn't even naked under the towel!
• Monster of the Week: A number of times in the first part of the series, the Minerva and her crew would encounter and have to destroy a powerful Mobile Armor deployed by the Federation. In the latter part of the show, they reappeared in greater numbers as minor (though still powerful) enemies.
• Motile Vehicular Components: Minerva-class space battleships can retract their combat control centers into the heavily-armored core of the ship when under combat conditions.
• Music for Courage: Lacus sings for the children she takes care of during the Break The World catastrophe. This is also part of the point behind Durandal's plan to have Meer impersonate Lacus.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Many of the mecha designs are based on mobile suits from earlier Gundam shows. The Impulse has quite a few similarities to the RX-78-2 Gundam, what with being a Combining Mecha consisting of legs as one section, upper body as another, and Space Fighter/Meta Mecha cockpit as the torso, and a very similar red-with-gold-cross design for its shield. The ZAKU Warrior, GOUF Ignited, and DOM Trooper aren't even subtle about it, using the same names as their Mobile Suit Gundam counterparts (with added acronyms). The Akatsuki, Destroy Gundam, and BABI are also very similar to Zeta Gundam's Hyaku-Shiki, Psycho Gundam, and Hambrabi, respectively.
  • Athrun's first mobile suit after rejoining ZAFT is the Saviour. In a bit of Discontinuity Nod and Take That!, the way Athrun was defeated by Kira (piloting the Freedom) shortly after getting it led to the fan-made term "Savioured".
  • The Destroy Gundam is basically a combination of the Psycho Gundam and the Big Zam.
  • The Strike Freedom's design is reminiscent of the Hi-Nu Gundam (which appeared in the novel version of Char's Counterattack).
  • Since they were already reusing GOUF and ZAKU, they couldn't resist having Heine (in a GOUF) use Ramba Ral's classic "This is no Zaku, boy! No Zaku!" line from Mobile Suit Gundam. The battle between Heine and Stella in general is very similar, down to camera angles in some instances.
  • In reference to Mobile Suit Gundam's Kai Shiden making a cameo appearance in Zeta Gundam as an investigative reporter, Miriallia (a character from Gundam SEED) first shows up in Destiny as a photojournalist. The two characters are otherwise completely dissimilar.
  • Athrun's alias, "Alex Dino", was a reference to the Gundam Alex.
  • Neo Roanoke's mask was designed after Zechs Merquise's mask. Interestingly, they were both voiced by Takehito Koyasu.
  • At one point, they used a piece of stock footage from Gundam SEED's Strike Gundam in place of the Impulse. Since it was nearly a Freeze-Frame Bonus, it's generally assumed to be an in-joke by the staff rather than a genuine mistake.
  • In episode 39, Kira disabling 25 ZAKUs and GOUFs in under two minutes were a deliberate nod to Amuro destroying nine Rick Doms in under three minutes in episode 33 of Mobile Suit Gundam ("Farewell in Side 6"). Also in the same episode, Kira shouted "HIT THEM!" while launching the Super DRAGOONs, much like how Gyunei Guss and Char launched the Funnels on their respective mobile suits, the Jagd Doga and the Sazabi in Char's Counterattack.
  • Lunamaria failing to shoot down Djibril's shuttle during his escape from Orb was a reference to Char missing several shots against Jamitov's shuttle in episode 36 of Zeta Gundam ("Forever Four").
  • Copernicus City (in episode 46) is designed after the city Gaingnham, which appeared in ∀ Gundam.
  • There's a trio of ZAFT pilots who use black DOM suits, just like the Black Tri-Stars unit from Mobile Suit Gundam. They even do the Jet Stream Attack.
  • The Deuterion Beam recharging the Impulse Gundam via a beam of energy is similar to the Satellite System in After War Gundam X.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The Freedom Gundam is this in-universe as it is considered the strongest Mobile Suit to date for the first half of the season and is known to indiscriminately target anyone. The Destroy Gundam's name is an understatement of how much damage it causes while the name is also this in-universe too after the Berlin incident.
• Narrator: As with SEED, Kotono Mitsuishi narrates the series.
• N.G.O. Superpower: Despite getting its butt kicked in the previous series, Blue Cosmos remains a dangerous and influential threat. LOGOS is also this considering that Blue Cosmos was merely a catspaw for them. And of course, the Clyne Faction/Three Ships Alliance.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Nice job getting Kira to come out of retirement after a failed assassination attempt on his girlfriend, Durandal. You just earned yourself more enemies, especially Lacus who gets busy investigating your ultimate plan.
• Nice Mean And In Between:
  • Out of the three main Gundam pilots, Kira is definitely the Nice and most compassionate, Athrun is the In-Between and Shinn is the Mean although Athrun and Shinn can be the other two every now and then. Athrun is usually the In-Between but can be very nice when the time comes for it but occasionally becomes (unintentionally) mean as he has to juggle his own personal issues and trying to mentor Shinn. Shinn is usually ill-tempered and the Mean as he also suffers from his own problems but has shown that he can be In-Between when the enemy he is fighting isn't anyone he wants to personally destroy, being a lot more rational and strategic than expected. Shinn can also be the Nice as seen with Stella and Mayu.
  • Like the three main pilots, the same goes for the Minerva red coats of Shinn, Lunamaria and Rey. Lunamaria is usually the Nice as she is the most friendly but can get (comically) moody and jealous when Meer or Meyrin are concerned with Athrun before she falls for Shinn. Lunamaria also berates Shinn from time to time, making her the comically Mean but also In-Between sometimes. Like above, Shinn is mostly the Mean but can be Nice and In-Between but between himself, Lunamaria and Rey, flops between In-Between and Mean with Rey. Rey is the most rational and level-headed one and is the In-Between, not having Shinn's temper or Lunamaria's social attitude but is otherwise quite mild-mannered. Rey is capable of being Nice with how he treats Lunamaria with offering him her hotel room at the cost of sleeping on the Minerva instead and genuinely cares for Shinn, regardless of whether or not Durandal or the Destiny Plan is concerned. However, Rey can also be the Mean as he becomes quite harsh to Lunamaria and even shuts her out of important discussions.
  • In the Joule team, Yzak retains being the Mean compared to Dearka and Shiho but is very much a wise commander and tends to shout if it means reprimanding them for their own good. Dearka is the Nice as he is the most relaxed and friendly. Shiho is definitively the In-Between due to her few personality traits shown in the manga being mostly neutral and mild-mannered but serious in combat, not having Yzak's fiery temper or Dearka's relaxed attitude.
  • In Phantom Pain, Stella is the Nice and most sympathetic of the three when she isn't fighting, Auel is definitely the Mean as he loves violence and destruction when possible while the level-headed and leader among the three Sting is the In-Between, not afraid to get violent but knows when to stop if necessary.
• No Endor Holocaust: Horribly averted. Part of Shinn's backstory is his burning hatred for Orb (and by extension the Athha family) for their failure to protect civilians like his family, who were brutally massacred by the collateral damage from the battle between the Calamity Gundam and the Freedom Gundam. During the Battle of Berlin, the Destroy Gundam is clearly shown vaporizing men, women, and children with its missile and beam cannon attacks. The death toll is later confirmed to be in the thousands despite not even aiming at them.
• No One Could Survive That!: Kira and the Freedom's explosion and Athrun and Meyrin when their GOUF was totaled by Shinn.
• No Power, No Color: Mobile Suits with Phase Shift Armor depend on the color of their activated armor to determine its strength and power consumption. If the armor is deactivated from the suit being on standby in a hangar or the battery running low on power, the only color the armor will have is gray and leave the machine vulnerable.
• No Sympathy For Grudge Holders: Averted for most of the series; Shinn blames Orb and Cagalli's father for the death of his family, but no one really calls him out on it. However, by the final act of the show, Shinn is actively using his trauma to justify basically annihilating anything that he thinks is causing suffering in the world, which includes his home country. At that point, Athrun (whom has defected from ZAFT again) starts outright telling Shinn that he needs to grow up and move on.
• Not Quite Flight: Like in SEED, some units with heavy weaponry are given powerful thrusters to hover over the ground and surface of water to increase its ability to fight on different terrain. The Blast Impulse has powerful thrusters to allow for hovering but cannot be used for actual flight like the Force Impulse can.
• Nuke 'em: The Earth Forces' troops try to launch nuclear warheads on ZAFT and the PLANT colonies again...except ZAFT has a huge weapon which allows them to wipe them all out and cause the Earth Forces' nukes to blow them up as well.
• Number of the Beast: Rey's Gundam, the ZGMF-X666S Legend.
• Offscreen Teleportation: It seems the quickest way for someone to get back on board the Archangel is to get in a mobile suit and let Shinn impale it with his BFS. By the looks of it, you only run a one-in-three chance of getting any injuries.
• Older and Wiser: Subverted with the original SEED cast. They know more about the world thanks to their experiences in the last war, sure, but those same experiences left them more than a little burnt out, and now they have to deal with a new list of issues. Athrun tries to play the role of mentor to the new cast, but his poor social skills leaves him struggling to properly convey his messages. Kira's own actions, while well-intentioned, are heavily influenced by how exhausted he is with war which ends up causing even more problems. It's not until he gets the Strike Freedom he starts making better decisions and changes mindsets. Overall, the only characters to play this trope straight are Yzak and Dearka, who are Demoted to Extra anyway.
• Once an Episode: If a battle spans more than 1 episode, all Mobile Suits will return to their ship by the end of one episode, only to launch again in the next. Also, every episode has at least one Gundam sortie. Except when they forget it in one, and make up for it by having 4 or 5 sortie in the next episode.
• One-Man Army: Kira, Athrun, Shinn, Stella in the Destroy, and Neo in the Akatsuki become unstoppable forces of nature in a Gundam.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: The Strike Freedom and Infinite Justice are rarely referred to by their full names and usually go by "Freedom" and "Justice". Zigzagged with the ZAKU series which are sometimes called just Warrior or Phantom. During their launch, they are commonly just called ZAKU.
• Organ Dodge: Andrew Waltfeld does the prosthetic limb version, blocking a knife with his arm and then revealing the gun hidden underneath to finish off the attacker. The damage from the knife doesn't appear to do more than cosmetic damage to the prosthetic either.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Athrun's "Alex Dino" identity at the beginning of SEED: Destiny. Hardly anything is changed and his hair also doesn't get any change of style, but no one seems to identify him.
• Pietà Plagiarism: Athrun carrying Meer, and Shinn carrying Stella.
• Posthumous Character: A few of the deceased SEED cast serve this role, including Rau Le Creuset, who may or may not be a hallucination.
• Praetorian Guard: FAITH (Fast Acting Integrated Tactical Headquarters), a ZAFT elite force that only answers to Durandal, and which many of the protagonists are members. While they're not the Chairman's bodyguards full-time, they do end up protecting him during the Armory One attack, and serving him during the Battle of Messiah.
• Precision F-Strike: In the English dub of Phase 12, as well as the first TV Movie, Shinn says, "Aww, shit!" when the Zamza-Zah grabs Impulse's leg. You can see it here.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: Phantom Pain is made up of a couple of guys, the most prominent being trio of Extended teens with their own quirks: Stella is kinda absentminded, Auel is the craziest of the trio, and Sting has the most common sense. Neo Roanoke is also quite fatherly, especially to Stella.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Shinn has red eyes, and in a Gundam, he becomes a very dangerous fighter in any battlefield.
• Refuge in Audacity: Lacus gets a shuttle to the PLANTs by impersonating her impersonator, walking into the spaceport, and saying she's there for her scheduled flight. She even signs autographs while waiting for the shuttle to be prepped. The only hiccup to the operation came when the real fake Lacus showed up for her flight while Lacus was taxiing for takeoff.
• Replacement Scrappyinvoked: Lord Djibril is an in-universe example, lacking the charisma and intelligence of his predecessor, Muruta Azrael.
• Re-Release Soundtrack: In episode 39 of the HD Remaster, T.M.Revolution's song, "Vestige", was replaced with "Kira, Sono Kokoro no Mama ni" ("Kira, Just as He Pleases"/"Kira, True to His Feelings") during Strike Freedom's first sortie.
• Retcon: A Flash Back at the beginning of the first episode implies that Kira may have accidentally killed the Asuka family. Later on, another Flash Back clearly shows that Kira was not at fault. However, they are inconsistent with one another. The official cause of death of Shinn's family was that they were caught in a crossfire between the Freedom and Calamity, which was restored in TV Movie 1.
• The Reveal: A rather understated (and generally unsurprising) one concerning Rey's origins. Another regarding the true purpose of the Destiny Plan.
• Revised Ending: In the original broadcast, the final scene was the survivors watching the fall of Messiah with no Dénouement. The Special Edition features an Extended Cut with several new scenes which have carried over to the HD Remaster. Athrun is edited into the final Mexican Standoff in which he was not originally present, "Field of hope" plays over the ceasefire, Kira is finally introduced to Shinn as the Freedom's pilot, Murrue and Mu are together and presumably retired (with Waltfeld), Kira has become a white coat officer, Athrun has become an ORB admiral, and Lacus and Cagalli have become the respective leaders of PLANT and ORB.
• Right-Hand Cat: Djibril is occasionally seen stroking a cat while contemplating acts of villainy that have been set into motion.
• Rule of Sexy: Lacus' modest bust is inflated to Meer-levels in the eyecatch and some official art. She's never anywhere near that stacked in canon.
• Say My Name: Athrun's agonized cry when Kira is apparently killed in his climactic duel with Shinn. The English version is especially gut-wrenching.
• Scissors Cuts Rock: The Freedom's Xiphias railguns are powerful enough to damage through the Abyss Gundam's Phase Shift Armor in Phase-23.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: In one battle, Shinn breaks off combat in order to free civilian prisoners of the Alliance; when Athrun administers Corporal Punishment afterwards, Shinn responds with this trope.
• Sequel Song: See-Saw wrote the fourth ending theme song "Kimi wa Boku ni Niteiru" as an answer song to "Anna ni Issho Datta no ni", SEED's first ending theme they also wrote. The lyrics reflect the rift and renewal of Kira and Athrun's friendship over the two shows, starting with "We were so close together, but the twilight has a different color now..." and ending with "The two of us can put an end to this."
• Shout-Out:
  • There are numerous references to Future GPX Cyber Formula, the series that put director Mitsuo Fukuda on the map; this includes shots in the opening lifted frame-for-frame from Future GPX Cyber Formula SAGA and SIN, as well as several SEED characters driving the same cars and motorcycles featured in the earlier show. At one point, a leaked sketch of the Strike Freedom lead fans to believe that the Mid-Season Upgrade Gundams would have Theme Naming shout outs (IE "Knight Justice", "Sin Providence").
  • Take a good look at Durandal's chair and the window behind it on the Messiah space station. They are very similar to the ones in the Emperor's throne room on the second Death Star.
  • In episode #9, there's a brief mention of the EAF ship "Netanyahu", named most likely after the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
• Shout-Out Theme Naming: Athrun's Mid-Season Upgrade, Infinite Justice, is named after "Operation Infinite Justice", the original name for "Operation Enduring Freedom". Likewise, Kira's Freedom is likely named after "Operation Enduring Freedom". Finally, Kira's Strike Freedom is named after his two previous mobile suits, the Strike and the Freedom.
• So Last Season:
  • At one point, Kira sorties in the Strike Rouge, a machine pretty much identical to his old Strike Gundam. He nearly gets his butt handed to him by a group of ZAFT pilots in top-of-the-line grunt-class Mobile Suits. He puts up a much better fight in the Strike Rouge Ootori version of the battle compared to the Aile Strike Rouge.
  • The Raider Full Spec, an upgraded version of the Raider Gundam that gave Kira and Athrun in their Freedom and Justice Gundam a lot of trouble, makes a cameo during the battle at Heaven's Base, Iceland. It barely put up a fight against Rey's new Legend Gundam.
  • Subverted with the Freedom Gundam where it is still considered the most powerful Mobile Suit before the introduction of the Destiny, Legend, Infinite Justice and Strike Freedom.
• Soundtrack Dissonance:
  • The nightmarish images of the Junius Seven Colony Drop set against Lacus's "Fields of Hope".
  • Also the triumphant baroque symphony that plays as the Alliance is launching nukes at the PLANTS.
• Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace: Kira objects by barging into the wedding with his Freedom Gundam to take Cagalli away.
• Spell My Name With An S: Not as bad as many Gundam series, but the fansubs had fun with Gilbert Durandal/Durandel/Dullindel/etc, apparently not getting the reference.
• Spoiler Opening: The second opening shows us that Mu La Flaga survived before it was even close to being revealed.
• State Sec: Downplayed with Phantom Pain. Though having personnel of the Earth Alliance military, the special ops group was controlled by Blue Cosmos and LOGOS .
• Stock Footage: There is so much reused footage in this series, especially towards the end, that it actually earned the director the derogatory nickname of Mitsuo "Flashback 'Em All" Fukuda. To make matters worse, some of footage came from its prequel.
• A Storm Is Coming: Lacus says "There's a storm on its way" at the end of episode 7, after fragments of Junius Seven crashed on Earth. Kira thought the same thing as well.
• Strange Salute: ZAFT military's salute is basically the standard real life military salute, but the arm is lower and the right hand doesn't go infront of the forehead.
• Stripperiffic: Meer's outfits show lots of skin.
• Submersible Spaceship: While the Archangel wasn't capable of operating underwater in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, by the time of Destiny, she has been specifically upgraded for that, in order to make it easier for the Clyne Faction to hide an entire space battleship on Earth.
• Super Mode: SEED Mode, which increases people's piloting abilities via a psychedelic vision of a seed exploding and Reflectionless Useless Eyes.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Like in SEED, the endings between Episode 26 to 37 (with the song "I Wanna Go To A Place") includes the Boosted Men, Extended and even Rau Le Creuset and Gilbert Durandal relaxing among the main cast. The major characters in Destiny not included in the ending are the mysterious Neo Roanoke though he does appear later in the ending albeit as Mu La Flaga in his SEED outfit and Djibril.
• Take a Third Option: The leftover members of the Three Ship Alliance take this route when they determine that both ZAFT and ORB are heading towards less than ideal futures.
• Taking the Bullet: Poor Meer dies as she takes a bullet meant for Lacus.
• Theme Naming:
  • Most of the Minerva's weapons are named after Wagner operas.
  • Shinn's BFSes, the Excalibur and the Arondight, were taken from the Arthurian Legend.
• Transformation in Motion: The BuCuE and LaGowe Animal Mecha type Mobile Suits used by ZAFT can switch from tank mode to quadrupedal mode almost instantly, meaning they can do this in the midst of combat while driving or running.
• Transformation Is a Free Action: No one ever tries to shoot down the Core Splendor or the Chest and Leg Fliers whenever they combine into the Impulse Gundam.
• Transformation Sequence: Impulse Gundam's launch sequence, debuting with a music track lasting well over a minute.
• Transforming Mecha: The Savior, Chaos, Gaia, and Abyss Gundams all transform into various Mobile Armor forms (ironically, the Impulse is more of a Combining Mecha), as do several other ZAFT designs. ORB also debuts the Murasame as their new standard Mobile Suit. SEED Destiny Astray had an Imagine Spot where the Impulse had Silhouette Packs of the Chaos, Gaia and Abyss Gundam that allowed it to transform the same way they did to allow it to fight on different terrains.
• Trigger Phrase: The Phantom Pain pilots have at least two; one that acts as an anger trigger and one that calms them back down again. They're seen using them on each other occasionally. Shinn accidentally uses both on Stella when they first meet - for some reason their handlers decided to use words that could easy come up in a normal conversation, and sometimes they do. Even Auel breaks down when he accidentally mentions his "mother".
• Two Guys and a Girl: Shinn, Rey, and Lunamaria and Sting, Auel, and Stella. Meyrin, Yolan and Vino from the Minerva, Yzak, Dearka and Shiho of the Joule Team and the DOM Trooper Team of the Clyne Faction may also count.
• Tyke Bomb: All three Extendeds are kids bred and trained for war.
• The Unreveal: We never learn whether the Asuka family was killed by a stray shot from Kira, the "Druggies", or something else entirely. We also never definitively learn who sent the assassins after Lacus, with only Chairman Durandal being the most likely suspect.
• Unwanted Harem: At its peak point in the series, there are no less than four hot young women who are vying for Athrun's attention.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: In the last episodes, Cagalli has removed Athrun's ring, while she still wore it when they fought on opposing sides.
• Villain Ball: In-universe example; Meer's Lacus impersonation notwithstanding, Kira wonders that if the assassination attempt on Lacus had not happened, he and the rest of the Archangel crew might have been okay with Durandal's "Destiny Plan" when it was finally revealed. Out-of-Universe, it certainly would have kept them out of the fighting for some time.
• Villainous Legacy: The damage that Rau Le Creuset and his Unwitting Pawns Patrick Zala and Muruta Azrael did in the original series, has yet to be undone by this point. Azrael's successor, Djibril, has picked up where Azrael left off, Zala faction loyalists continue to launch terrorist strikes against ZAFT and the EA alike, and Rau's prediction of the next war starting with "the tears and screams of survivors" comes true very quickly.
• Villains Never Lie: Gilbert Durandal pulls this off with his speeches of good doing in the beginning. He's not wrong about weapons of war being needed as wars will eventually happen, as he stated in the first episode. The final act of the show however has Durandal go off the deep end, becoming blatant about getting his world of peace with his new Destiny Plan.
• Wave-Motion Gun: The Tannhauser and Lohengrin positron cannons affixed to the Minerva and Archangel, respectively. The Destroy has one that it combines with Beam Spam. The Requiem is another example. Messiah Base also features Neo-Genesis, a scaled down version of the Genesis from the first series as part of its defences.
• Weapons of Mass Destruction: The nukes, the Requiem, Neo-Genesis, and the Destroy are capable of causing mass destruction on anything in their way.
• Weapon Tip Focus: In the first episode, Shinn Asuka, piloting the Sword Impulse Gundam, makes his dramatic entrance by placing himself in the middle of Athrun and Cagalli when they were surrounded by Phantom Pain. Upon his arrival, Shinn immediately draws his swords and combines them into a double-bladed configuration, and takes this stance while activating them.
• Wedding Smashers: Kira crashes Cagalli and Yuna's wedding to kidnap/rescue her. Cagalli is not amused, at least initially.
• Welcome Back, Traitor: Dearka and Athrun returned to ZAFT despite defecting in the last war. Dearka at least gets busted down from Red^note the uniform color given to top graduates of the ZAFT military academy to Green^note the uniform for common soldiers, apparently isn't allowed Ace Custom colors for his ZAKU until the very end of the series and is given the common ZAKU Warrior rather than the ace-pilot or commander use ZAKU Phantom. The HD Remaster changes this by giving his first ZAKU custom colors.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Shinn pretty much blames all that happened at Orb on Cagalli, and he isn't exactly subtle about revealing his opinions. In fact, Shinn calls out Cagalli so much it's nearly a Once per Episode deal.
  • Kira also gets called out twice by Athrun for trying to communicate with Orb stating he is just making the battlefield worse. Although even Kira thinks he is wrong in the Special Edition he notes that this is the only thing he can do whereas in the TV series Murrue supports him.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Stella once she's forced into the Destroy Gundam. She starts tearing up the countryside, blowing up cities and killing scores of people... because they scare her. Rau Le Creuset's status as such is also brought up again in the flashback episodes.
• Worf Had the Flu: Kira, Athrun and Shinn all suffer this at least once.
  • Kira gets distracted in the Freedom VS Impulse battle which stops him from focusing fully against Shinn. This leads to the destruction of the Freedom Gundam.
  • Athrun experiences this in the Savior Gundam when he rejoins ZAFT where he is unable to defeat Sting in the Chaos Gundam, despite matching the other Second Stages in a ZAKU Warrior earlier.
  • Shinn's mental state once he gets the Destiny Gundam has deteriorated so bad that he relies on blindly charging in with his BFS rather than using any strategy he used in the Impulse Gundam. This allows Kira and Athrun to easily defeat him once they deprive him of his BFS.
• Worst Wedding Ever: For the sake of her country, Cagalli was about to marry a man who was using her and whom she didn't love, in a dress and makeup that didn't suit her, when her brother used his giant mobile suit and kidnapped her from the ceremony. The groom was left empty-handed, screaming, and whimpering.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Overlapping with Gambit Roulette. Whether you think Durandal is behind everything (including the Colony Drop, the attack on Lacus et al) that happens in the series or is just very good at altering his plans to take advantage of events as they occur has a lot to do with whether you think he's a villain or not.
• Zen Survivor: The original characters from SEED, especially Athrun to the Minerva's pilots.